Fonterra launches nutrition solution brand Nutiani aiming to accelerate industry growth

07 Sep 2022 --- Fonterra is unveiling its B2B brand Nutiani, targeting multi-billion dollar medical and well-being nutrition markets. The dairy exporter says it will supply a range of nutritional foods for other companies to sell under their brands.

“Nutiani, a new business-to-business brand offering end-to-end solutions through a combination of products, concepts and services that accelerate our customers’ innovation pipelines to meet evolving needs of consumers,” Komal Mistry-Mehta, chief of innovation and brand officer at Fonterra tells NutritionInsight.

The brand will offer powders and drinks with attributes such as helping to mitigate stress, improving mobility and managing body weight.

“The creation of the new brand brings concepts that help customers tailor their products to meet consumers’ evolving well-being nutrition needs,” Mistry-Mehta adds.

“Our health and well-being customers are facing growing pressure to accelerate their innovation pipeline to respond to these dynamic consumer demands, yet they face common challenges during new product development and are looking for partners to fill their capability gaps.”

B2B solutionsFonterra says that 90% of consumers include both mental and physical health when referring to overall well-being.
By offering end-to-end solutions with services that leverage the intellectual property of Fonterra and investments in research, Mistry-Mehta notes: “Nutiani is providing a suite of solutions which help customers tackle the pain points associated with each step of the innovation journey – from identifying the opportunity to validate the final product.”

“We see a clear opportunity to win in critical global well-being nutrition space segments. Fonterra’s deep expertise in nutrition science gives us an incredible advantage here. We will use Fonterra’s existing expertise in nutrition science to develop targeted solutions while opening up opportunities for strategic partnerships to deliver access to new markets and consumers,” she says.

The company highlights the rising markets for physical, mental and inner well-being nutrition to grow at 6% annually. Up to date, it is currently valued at US$66 billion.

Targeting different segments
Fonterra highlights that 90% of consumers believe being healthy includes looking after several aspects of mental and physical well-being. According to external consumer wellness research, 56% of consumers manage their health through dietary patterns.

“There’s no doubt that people are paying more attention to well-being and managing it through diet. Research shows 96% of consumers actively manage their well-being, with more than half consciously managing their diet to improve their well-being,” says Mistry-Mehta.

“The opportunity in the nutrition market is therefore already significant for our customers and anyone who wants to play in the health & well-being space. We expect the industry to continue growing in the upcoming years, with more and more pressure on brands to deliver trusted science-based nutrition products that can support active lifestyles or prevent specific conditions at every stage of consumers’ life,” she adds.

Recently Fonterra and DSM announced the launch of a precision fermentation start-up to create dairy-like protein. The company’s NZMP brand is delving into research targeting malnutrition among the elderly. The brand is also aiming to diversify probiotics in F&B targeting sports nutrition.

Future prospectsThe company highlights the rising markets for physical, mental and inner well-being nutrition to grow at 6% annually.
The dairy industry is progressing in sports nutrition, as industry players recently highlighted to NutritionInsight that protein bars are the most popular dairy performance snacks. Additional recent innovations from the company include using VitaKey’s space-ready technology to design dairy products with the help of probiotic strains. 

In terms of macroeconomic challenges, the company highlights experience with tackling uncertainties. However, at this point, multiple events are present simultaneously, such as inflation, COVID-19, a strained supply chain and the Ukraine war.

“Our priorities are to keep our people safe while ensuring we can continue operating. Our people have done a good job of adapting, working flexibly and stepping up to deliver for our customers these last few years in response to these events - and the same goes for the launch of Nutiani,” Mistry-Mehta continues. “Nutiani was born despite these challenges.”

By Beatrice Wihlander